Francis Joseph Cole FRS[1] (3 February 1872 – 27 January 1959) was an English zoologist and a professor at the University of Reading for 33 years.
Cole was born in London and educated at Sir Walter St. John's School, Battersea and Jesus College, Oxford.
He then began setting up the Cole Museum of Zoology, encouraging overseas visitors to the Department to donate specimens.
He wrote in particular on comparative anatomy and the history of zoology, after his early work on the morphology of fish.
He retired from Reading in 1939 being replaced by Prof Charles Henry O'Donoghue.